


The Sound of Distant Thunder

by Fontainebleau



Series: See Me, Feel Me [4]
Category: The Magnificent Seven (2016)
Genre: M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 16:34:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,919
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9500273
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Fontainebleau/pseuds/Fontainebleau
Summary: They met in a bar in Texas, and that's true. Strictly speaking.





	

Goodnight runs a hand over the creased paper and examines the picture. Dark hair, obviously, under a dark hat, moustache, though that may have changed, flat cold-eyed stare. Thin, gaunt even. Not prepossessing, but if your likeness appears under the word WANTED, that’s expected. Should be easy to recognise, but that’s the kicker: Park must stand out, sure enough, but the fact that he’s evaded capture for so long implies that he may not be an easy prospect to bring in.

An easy target is what he needs. The money’s good, enough to set himself up, find a place to settle, an occupation (or, says a voice at the back of his mind, to drink himself to death in style). But it has to be a man he can cow into submission long enough to hand him over to the authorities. The few others he’s brought in have been small fry, men on the run but not truly expecting to escape, almost glad at the hand on the shoulder because it ends the waiting. Park, on the other hand, must have eluded better men than him. He studies the picture again. First things first: find him.

He sits alone watching the evening’s fading light, grazing horse and flask for company, and a ghost sits on the other side of his fire: Sam Chisolm, smiling to himself, feeding the flames, shaking his head over one of Goodnight’s tall tales. The year of travelling together, of long days’ rides livened by rambling conversations, of lazy storytelling at night, of the gradual sharing of past, is a loss he regrets keenly. He writes, picks up letters when he can, but the bare exchange of news is a poor substitute for the richness of daily acquaintance, the exchange of opinions, of unlikely facts, of confidence. 

Bounty-hunting itself was Sam’s occupation, not his: Sam was fashioned for it, a man with a faith in the law and an unbending will to see justice served. Goodnight’s done too much to place such faith in abstract virtues. He suddenly sees the tiny figure of Park before him as though down the sights of a Whitworth rifle: _once I picked them out I never missed_. The unbidden image fills him with a cold wash of guilt: justice may be what he’s about here, but who defines _just_?

\--

Billy becomes aware of the man on his trail soon after leaving Sutter’s Bend. Bounty-hunters have become fewer over time as he’s moved south and east, made his track harder to follow, but the money’s sufficiently attractive that sooner or later someone will be intrepid or desperate enough to think it worth his while. So he’s watchful, always, for the plume of dust behind him, the face glimpsed more than once at a fight or in a bar, the scrutiny that tries to link his features to an ill-drawn picture. 

Today, for the first time in a long while, a movement in the distance caught his eye, and when he found his trail leading up and over a tall bluff he left his mount a way down the slope and scrambled back up for a better look behind him. The distant horseman moving across the plain below could be nothing, could be a traveller, a drifter like him, but something about his steady advance makes him uneasy. He’s too far away for Billy to make out any detail, just a man in a low-crowned hat on a horse, and as far as Billy’s concerned that’s the way it’s going to stay. 

He scrambles back down the bluff and swings back into the saddle. Crozierville is less than two days away, so it seems a reasonable supposition that this man is headed there. His own provisions are running low, but he’s experienced worse than a few hungry nights: one direction or another, it’s all the same to him, a succession of sour little towns to be exploited for what he can then left behind. He turns his horse decisively away from the trail and urges him to a gallop.

When he’s put some distance between the horseman and himself Billy slows again. Hasty travel is a waste: one of his pleasures is the landscape itself. He saw little of America when he came, hustled from ship to work camp, and then he all he saw were the bones of the land as they dug and blasted into it. Only since he took to the drifting life has he had the chance to take measure of this place, to run his hands over the striated rocks and read their history, to test the spiny shrubs and learn the animals which go skittering off at his approach. 

Later he sits at the top of another height, vista of towering red rocks and water-cut canyons laid out before him. As he scans the darkening country behind him, he seems to see the wink of a distant campfire. Imagination? Probably.

\--

The downhill slope is steep, and rather than risk laming his mare Goodnight dismounts to lead her carefully over the stony ground. It’s lucky he does: halfway down he comes across a flattened space, recent droppings showing where another horse waited. _Did he see me? Was he that alert?_ He follows the intermittent hoofmarks further down the slope, losing them, casting about to find them again, and near where it flattens out he sees the point where they suddenly diverge from the trail. _Yes, he saw_. 

As he follows the new path he conceives a new and unlikely image of himself: the eagle wheeling lazily in the sky waiting for the rabbit to break and run, the bobcat tracking the fleeing deer. It’s a weird kinship, hunter and hunted, hovering at the edges of each other’s consciousness. This time when he tethers his horse and makes camp, when he cooks and huddles close to the warmth to eat, he imagines himself rising up on silent wings to see the spark of his own fire and further away the light of Park’s, the two of them side by side in the vastness of the night.

When he lies down next to the embers he summons fantasies to flicker in his mind’s eye, a familiar kaleidoscope of images, real or imagined, to arouse and distract: hands trailing over naked flesh, a searching mouth, hasty and desperate, a kneeling figure in a shadowed alley. But as he comes close, stroking himself in the dark, there’s only ever one thing he sees: the sunlight through the leaves, pale limbs in the water, his own hand tangled in a head of dark curls. There’s only ever one name on his breath as he shudders to stillness: _Marc_.

\--

Four days later in New Gilead Billy’s still jumpier than he should be. Every sign tells him that he’s lost his pursuer, if he even was that, but the attention fixed on him itches between his shoulderblades. He can’t shake the idea that even now he might be being watched, evaluated. No intelligent man after his bounty is going to walk up to him unprepared: his looks – protective colouring, like a poisonous snake – are usually sufficient to deter the weak or rash. A more experienced lawman will take at least a little time assessing him, deciding on his approach. 

The town’s not so big that there’s a choice of bars: this one makeshift drinking-place is what there is, where outsiders like him rub shoulders with farmers and professional drunks. Today it’s more than just the familiar flicker of hesitation when he orders his drink, the slight change in atmosphere as he discovers whether he’ll be taken at his own estimation. He sets himself with his back to the canvas wall, feet up on the chair: no one’s going to take him by surprise, but he still feels a grating unease. Is he drinking in the same room as his hunter? Could it be the big tracker in the hide jacket? The scarred man fiddling with his holster? The neatly-dressed bank-clerk type propping up the bar? Does someone here have his likeness and his old name in his pocket? 

He scans the room defiantly, chin up, deliberately showing his face, decision already made: prey’s not what he’s going to be. He’ll come out fighting, draw the man onto his own ground to deal with him: killing only ever brings more trouble, but rather that than run in fear from an unseen predator. No one seems to want to take up his invitation: eyes skim over his face without interest. Maybe it’ll need a lure. _Let’s make it easy for him_.

\--

In Santa Rosa Goodnight’s run him to ground, finally: he gathers his shaking nerve, sets himself up with a bottle and takes a seat behind the piano as far into the shadows as he can. The place is lively, with a detectable undercurrent of aggression, all gamblers and cowboys out for a good time and ornery as hell. He’s only a quarter of the way down the bottle when a sudden lull in the noise has his head snapping up. 

The man walking through the door is Park, sure enough. But the image from the warrant in his pocket? Laughable. Dark, moustached, clothes dusty and worn, yes, but strong, graceful, and that _face_. Goodnight is grateful to be in the shadows because he can’t do anything but stare. He can’t believe that no one else sees it: this man is astonishing. The way he carries himself, the economy of movement, the pride – it’s like seeing a hawk in a cloud of sparrows, a wolf among scavenging dogs. 

Park takes his stand at the bar, one boot on the rail, apparently relaxed: the noise has picked up again, though only so far, and it’s not hard to read the intention in the looks exchanged around him. The moment trembles in the balance and Goodnight’s fingers turn white on his glass, but when the bartender turns ugly, the argument escalates and the attack comes, Park was always ready. Four men, five: he becomes a whirlwind of deadly accurate blows, feints and dodges, flickering in and out like a striking snake. It’s a masterclass.

From his half-hidden position Goodnight can see the expressions of the watching drinkers: even a wolf can be brought down if the pack of dogs is sizeable enough. The sound of the shot brings everyone to a standstill and their attention to him as he stands, head held high. 

‘Enough,’ he announces. ‘I’m here to serve justice, and this man is mine. And now is a good time to be leaving.’ He gestures with his rifle, and the bar empties. 

Park’s chest is heaving, his face and fists bloodied, and in spite of his stillness Goodnight can see the violence waiting to uncoil and strike. He lays aside his gun and makes his approach, slow and deliberate in the ringing silence. 

‘That, my friend, was a privilege to witness.’ 

Park’s staring at the floor, eyes distant and unfocused. ‘You think you’re going to arrest me?’ 

‘Far from it.’ Goodnight’s ears are humming, his hands shaking; he needs to tread so gently, so delicately. He’ll get only this one chance, and he has to succeed. ‘No, I have a proposition to put to you. Goodnight’s my name, Goodnight Robicheaux.’ 

He holds out his hand and Park raises his head, considering. Blue eyes under a creased brow meet brown eyes, serious and intent, and for a long moment nothing happens, and then their story begins.

**Author's Note:**

> For Marc, see Spitfire007's The Many Adventures of Goodnight Robicheaux and Billy Rocks http://archiveofourown.org/works/8254768/   
> and this tumblr post: http://goodnightbillyrocks.tumblr.com/post/152348264841/hello-if-youre-looking-for-more-questions-id
> 
> Speak to me: fontainebleau22.tumblr.com


End file.
